Analysis Of Andrew Carnegie 's The Gospel Of Wealth

As young as 33, Carnegie was pulling in an annual income of $50,000 a year, a huge amount at that time, and this was enough for him. Carnegie was a firm believer that anyone could make it to the top, and that it was the wealthys’ duty to help the poor work towards a more comfortable life. Carnegie said that “the man who dies rich, dies disgraced.” This is a greedy, unselfish philosophy that a robber baron could not conceive.

Social classes have different standards of living. By properly administering wealth, Carnegie becomes the trustee of his poorer brethren’s funds. He believes the wealthy man, with his superior knowledge and experience in financial matters, is better suited to administer these funds. Carnegie says he would be “doing for them better than they would or could for themselves” (399). A wealthy person could buy a few acres of land, build a hospital, and create a hundred jobs in the hospital while creating affordable or free health care. The wealthy do not have to worry about how much it would cost if they were diagnosed with pneumonia. They simply take the diagnosis, pay for the treatment, and move on with their lives. A diagnosis of the same magnitude to a poor person could be life threatening. When Carnegie talks about

Andrew Carnegie, "The Gospel of Wealth," discusses the way human life has transformed over the years. These changes can be good or bad ones, depending on how people use them. People are becoming more civilized. Every change has a price to pay, nothing comes without demands. Later on the text evolves into discussing surplus wealth and how people handle it. The three methods of adjusting excess wealth. One in which the leftover wealth goes to the family. As right as this may seem, it has some drawbacks, for one, the son may not want to work hard to earn wealth since it was passed down to him already. No incentive for him to get an education or career. The second method is used for public purposes. As noble as this sounds, the individual waited

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a major American industrialist in the late 19th century and after obtaining substantial wealth from his steel industry, became an advocate for giving back to the less fortunate. Carnegie’s desire to donate to those less fortunate came from past experiences, growing up as an immigrant and working in a cotton factory young. He knew and understood the hardships that people faced when not able to acquire the type of wealth he rose to earn. Through his long life this atypical businessman advocated for many and dedicated the later years of his life to promoting the general welfare of the world.

The Gospel of Wealth is primarily about the dispersion of wealth and the responsibilities of those who have it. Carnegie thinks that inheritance is detrimental to society because it does not do any good for the

Andrew Carnegie. Who was he? Was he just a robber baron or a captain of industry. Andrew was a self made Entrepreneur in the late 1800s. He was the owner of the Carnegie Steel Company which monopolized the steel industry. In 1889 he wrote the famous “Gospel of Wealth” which made the use of libraries to give to the worthy poor that were smart to use them. He also gave away 350 million dollars. On the other side Carnegie’s steel workers were treated poorly by long working hours and reduced wages. He also gave support to the plant manager Henry Frick who hired Pinkerton thugs to intimidate workers on strike and many were killed in the conflict. Andrew Carnegie was sometimes saw as a robber baron taking others money to give away not spending his own money On the other hand people saw him as a captain of industry giving to the worthy poor with libraries and millions of dollars.

According to Carnegie, the responsibility of those who receive charity from the wealthy is to give the money only to those who deserve it. In 1889 Carnegie wrote an essay, “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he argued against what he called “indiscriminate almsgiving.” He began with the statement that there is a valid and significant difference among worthy and non-worthy poor. Some people, Carnegie argued, are poor through no accountability of their own: sometimes situations puts one in an undesirable position, making it hard to advance despite one’s best determinations.

The Gilded Age of America was a time of rich businessmen, and poor immigrants. Cigars rolled in one hundred dollar bills, food picked up off the street. These ideas would only be emphasised as the “big business” would be introduced to America. The CEOS that let their businesses would ultimately be either praised for their contributions to society, or hated for their greed. Men such as Rockefeller, JP Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was the first man to ever mass produce steel. Steel would help to fuel the industrialization of America. Not to mention that his constant philanthropic efforts, in where he would donate over 350 million dollars to libraries and schools to help educate the poor. However, his workers complained of extremely low wages. Based on the information in the mock trial and outside research, Andrew Carnegie should not be guilty of, reckless endangerment and greed; however, he can be charged guilty with the crime of hypocrisy. Carnegie should be considered as one of the most accomplished captains of industry.

Dear editor, Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth can have some valid points about things. One quote Carnegie stated is “In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will become themselves” (61-62). He is explaining how if people were to help themselves, then that’s the biggest charity there is because you won’t end up becoming or remaining poor. This in my opinion is true since you have to work hard in life to succeed and it doesn’t come easy. A second point Carnegie made was “we accept and welcome… as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves” (5-6). He is saying how we as people accept conditions to which we have to work hard for and maintain it and work with other people with that same mindset. I agree because

Andre Carnegie was a poor immigrant who came to the United States in a quest for the realization of the American Dream. A self-started entrepreneur who through hard work and by taking advantage of the right opportunities was able to develop an enormous wealth, signifying with it, the definite possibility of social mobility. In his essay “Wealth” of 1989 Carnegie refers to the importance of the distribution of wealth and how such fortune was there to be used by the rich for the benefit and well-being of all individuals of society. Throughout this essay I will be explaining the arguments for the redistribution of wealth made by Carnegie, while analyzing as well the factors that may have motivated him to write his famous essay “Wealth.”

If we look at these ever-present needs and realize the U.S. is an affluent enough society to meet them, we realize Carnegie may not have been as fit a person at distributing wealth as his public persona would indicate. Carnegie’s essay is now probably included in collegiate literature because he was a wealthy man; Galbraith’s essay is now probably included in collegiate literature because it stands on strong, morally-compassionate ideas. Galbraith would likely have chosen to redistribute wealth in a compassionate way that attempted to remove the environmental factor that causes certain “islands” of the population to remain poor and unproductive, paying special attention to the opportunities of the children in that area. Even further, he [Galbraith] ( 2010) proposed solutions for those who have no means to contribute to the productivity of society: the sick, the handicapped, the mentally ill (p. 413).

Carnegie was a wealthy man himself, but he practiced exactly what he preached. He notices how American society has revolutionized and created the divide between the rich and the poor as it changed. Carnegie compares the American past equality to the equality experienced among the Sioux Indians. Carnegie does not disapprove of the change, but recognizes it as “highly beneficial” (Foner 29). According to Carnegie, the evidence of the changing society is present in the “contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer” (Foner 29). Although Carnegie recognizes the divided between rich and poor, he does not see it as a bad thing, nor does he believe that people should stop obtaining wealth. Carnegie believes that the wealthy should use their money to provide for good instead of “hoarding great sums all their lives” (Foner 29). Carnegie approves of the implementation

To simply give money as “charity” to a man who has none, is to only feed into his follies as a man. Carnegie believes that in an every 1,000 dollars given to charity, 950 dollars of it goes to waste. The rich man who simply hands money away in small sums to others themselves only stalls the growth of character and ambition throughout the Nation.

Criticism of the economy can differ dramatically. Many might have very polar opposite ideas as to what needs to be done in order to better provide for a society's economic well-being. This is definitely the case between Karl Marx and Andrew Carnegie. Despite some basic similarities regarding the need for economic change, Marx's "Communist Manifesto" and Carnegie's "The Gospel of Wealth" prove incredibly different in how they claim to provide real solutions for economic problems. Marx demands that the people take back control of the means of production and redistribute wealth to all; while Carnegie insists that only an elite few in a society are responsible enough for handling the wealth and should remain in absolute control of it, even when determining how it is being redistributed into the society.

Breaking from family norms is a difficult process for any individual to obtain. Studies showcase that if an individual is grown into wealth they will become wealthy by following suit of the goals and characteristics of the environment provided by the heritage. Children raised within an environment of poverty have a slippery and steeper slope to achieve this life style. The odds and studies suggest that they are behind with the heritage by the characteristics or values that they have received. Studies highlight that poverty stricken parents pass the habits to their children and it is likely that they will grow up “unhappy, unsuccessful and poor.” (Corley, Thomas C.)